“The current law does not regulate today’s realities, it was adopted in 1991 and does not meet the Constitution and is not in compliance with other laws that have been adopted since 1991. During the constitutional amendments of 2005, we were committed to amend all the laws in line with the Constitution, but ten years have passed, and specifically nothing has been done in this law”, said the Head of “Partnership for Democracy” NGO, Stepan Danielyan, in the conversation with Aravot.am. The matter is about the law on the “Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organizations”.
Aravot.am had reported that today, the Head of the Socialist Movement of Armenia Robert Aharonyan and Head of Gloss human rights NGO, Ashot Hambardzumyan, were called to the police of Arabkir administrative district. The Police had imposed an administrative penalty against them because they had burned incense at the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mr. Aharonyan has mentioned that Jehovah’s Witnesses are engaged in soul hunting and are planned to turn to the National Assembly for emending the law. In an interview with us, Stepan Danielyan also mentioned that the law is subject to amending. “All of the clauses are vulnerable, imperfect and contradictory to the constitution, and that is why such problems arise that are legislatively impossible to regulate,” he said.
Mr. Danielyan mentioned that only the law would possibly define which of the religious organizations should operate and which ones to ban. “If there are religious organizations that are outside of Armenia’s legal aspect, their activities may be banned. That’s why I say that the law should regulate all these matters, which the law does not function. Therefore, this is another opportunity for us to demand the government to prepare a legislative initiative, because there were three initiatives and the Ministry of Justice has worked on the third one but does not publicize it, I am aware that there are many drawbacks. And the same people who complain, and the same Jehovah’s Witnesses and others need to demand the law to regulate this,” said Mr. Danielyan noting that all religious organizations, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, if we look at the legal dimension, also does mishandlings. The only way out of the situation is subjecting the law to amendment.
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Hripsime HOVHANNISYAN
